Green Aviation Research by the UK Turbulence Consortium

Simulating and understanding turbulent is one of the most challenging problems in science. Many of the environmental and energy-related issues we face today cannot possibly be tackled without a better understanding of turbulence. The overarching objective of the UK Turbulence Consortium (UKTC) is to facilitate world-class turbulence research using national High-End Computing (HEC) resources. The consortium serves as a forum to communicate research and HEC expertise within the UK turbulence community, and to help UK science remain internationally leading in this aspect of HEC-based research.

In this video, the focus is on greener quieter aircrafts with two examples as explain below.

-Jet Engine noise reduction: Noise generated by turbulence is closely related to aircraft noise. Reducing aircraft noise is urgent as our air traffic increases about 8% each year. In the consortium, we are using supercomputers to reproduce the noise generation in turbulent jets. The fine simulation provides us unprecedented insight into noise generation processes in turbulent flows. This enables the precious control of noise generation by manipulating turbulent structures via jet nozzle shape. Based on this research, we are able to significantly reduce aircraft noise compared to the traditional design.

-Laminar flow airfoils: Laminar flow is essentially the way airflow travels above and below wing surfaces. A certain amount of air turbulence occurs on the surface of most aircraft wings, regardless of their shape and size. As air moves across a wing, it’s altered by the friction between it and the wing’s surface, changing from a laminar, or smooth, flow at the forward area to more turbulent flow toward the trailing edge. The ideal would be laminar airflow across the entire surface of the wing with no sign of turbulence, which hinders flying performance by increasing aerodynamic drag and fuel consumption. In the consortium, we are performing high-fidelity simulations to better understand how to design a new generation of airfoils for which the air would remain laminar as much as possible for a wide range of speeds (up to close to the speed of sound).